


Sun-Bleached Gold or Summer Sunshine?

by alwaysyourqueen



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Consequences of Stress, Gen, Premature Hair Graying, Rachel character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26473276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysyourqueen/pseuds/alwaysyourqueen
Summary: The real question was whether to go au naturale and try to fly under her mom’s radar, or to be an exploring teen with different colored hair. Bold, fashionable, fun Rachel wanted to do a bright color — blue, green, maybe red. But practical Rachel knew any color brighter than her natural blonde would basically be a giant target, crosshairs and all. Look at me, Visser 3, I’m right here! No go.
Relationships: (both one-sided as there's nothing fully established), Implied Rachel (Animorphs)/Cassie (Animorphs), Implied Rachel (Animorphs)/Tobias (Animorphs)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Sun-Bleached Gold or Summer Sunshine?

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on being vaguely in the future post-book #8 or so as that's as far as I've gotten. I have a few spoilers for past that, but please none in the comments!

Dyeing her hair wasn’t something Rachel Berenson had considered much. She liked her appearance for the most part, and thought that it was only improved by the muscle mass she’d built over the past year.

Sitting in front of a floor length mirror, she pressed towards it, two fingers pincering a small bunch of hair. There was no denying it when she looked up close and personal: that was a gray hair. More than one, actually. Enough that someone might notice. They were coming in less than a centimeter away from her temple, and the color was just a dulled off-grey. It stood out in her sea of blonde. If she was the airhead everyone assumed she was from a distance, this would be the literal nightmare scenario. Graying at fourteen?

Thankfully, she wasn’t too obsessed with her looks. So instead it was only mildly upsetting. She didn’t care so much about other people’s thoughts on it as she did her own. Children weren’t meant to be in wars, and she had tried to ignore the way the stress had gotten to her for years. It was getting harder, as she felt more and more of it on her own shoulders, but this was the cherry on top. Not to mention, most people wouldn’t notice, but her mother? Jordan? They definitely would.

So hair dye was the only solution. The real question was whether to go au naturale and try to fly under her mom’s radar, or to be an exploring teen with different colored hair. Bold, fashionable, fun Rachel wanted to do a bright color — blue, green, maybe red. But practical Rachel knew any color brighter than her natural blonde would basically be a giant target, crosshairs and all. Look at me, Visser 3, I’m right here! No go.

The real question was whether to risk searching it on the family computer or to just go to the store and hope for the best. She decided on the latter, mostly because if her mom checked the search history and found hair dye of a natural color she would ask questions. And there was no world in which Sara or Jordan would be the ones dyeing their hair.

She counted together the money she had from allowance and holidays and doing chores, and it seemed like enough. The hardest part right  _ now _ was resisting the urge to morph to go out for this. It would raise a lot more questions if a fourteen year old in a leotard and no shoes walked into a store than Rachel, fully dressed in her finest “I’m totally a normal kid” clothes came in. The entire point was to have nobody else notice. Making this just a regular mall shopping trip was the best way to make sure that this flew under the radar. Preferably, even from her friends.

Rachel got up and dressed in her best “I look good but I’m not trying too hard” look. Coupled with the small wallet full of spare bills and coins, and she could just be normal Rachel going to shop at the mall. At another point in her life, the mall was her natural habitat, the place where she belonged most. Shopping had been the peak of fun, and it had been really, really fun. Now her idea of fun was having a mission where she got to morph something she enjoyed rather than a cockroach or a rat.

“Mom, I’m going to the mall,” she called down the stairs as she made her way to the door. “I might go over to Cassie’s after.”

“Stay safe, and call if you need a ride home.” Rachel knew her mom was hard at work and might not have noticed her absence if she didn’t call it out. It was sort of a relief when it came to not being noticed with Animorph business. Other times, she wished that it made more of an impact. That was neither here nor there on her particular mission.

She opened the front door and emerged into the sunlight. It was a nice enough day, with plenty of soft sunlight. The breeze was light enough it was hard to notice, but it kept the day from getting truly hot. Exactly the kind of day she’d go to the mall. She had to wonder if she was thinking just a bit too hard about what she would do. Pretending to be some version of herself, rather than being able to be herself. That thought came up for her more and more often.

The walk to the mall is one she could have done backwards, blindfolded, and after being spun around five times fast. That meant she could do it right now, eyes fixated on the concrete in front of her as she moved down the sidewalk. Hair occasionally pushed her hair out of place, and her fingers reflexively pushed the strands back behind her ears. She considered what else she could buy to cover up for the dye. Maybe a pair of shoes, or a small gift for Tobias. Something he could carry with him without it being too obvious, or getting in the way of flying.

<Where are you going?>

After so many months of having thought-speech as part of her toolset, one might think Rachel would not be so surprised to suddenly hear it. Anyone thinking that would be wrong. She almost stumbled over her own feet and went crashing to the pavement, but she managed to catch herself in time and look up. Overhead was a bird, floating on air as if it were nothing. Despite not being able to see the tail-feathers from this far away, she knew it was a red-tailed hawk because the only bird capable of thought-speaking was Tobias. He must be riding a thermal made by the bright sun on the asphalt road.

She tried to make her response look natural because it wasn’t easy to communicate that kind of information without looking crazy. She stretched her arms out behind her head, leaning back and gazing up. Towards the sky, she mouthed the word *mall* before letting herself focus again on the path in front of her.

<Alone?>

Rachel nodded her head. She didn’t want anyone to notice such a silly thing she wanted to change. She would never live it down, at least if word got back around to Marco. If she was going to the mall with someone in particular, it would be Cassie. And telling Cassie meant telling Jake, and Jake did not keep things under wraps if they were not life-threatening, so he would let something slip to Marco. And Marco used every weapon at his disposal to drive Rachel up a wall.

<I can’t really follow you into the mall. See you later.>

She looked up and watched as Tobias flapped his wings, gently tilting in one direction to redirect his flight path. She waved, hoping that he would see. He tried not to visit them during the day too much. Mostly he stayed out in the forest with Ax. She always liked it when he came to visit her, and it struck her that he probably only thought-spoke to her because he’d checked her house and seen with his keen vision she wasn’t in her bedroom. Maybe he wanted to talk to her. Nothing to be done about it now.

Rachel arrived at the mall and began perusing her options at a mall map. Beauty stores would be the place to check, though the dye would probably be very expensive there. On the other hand, probably very effective. She decided to go into the beauty store and hair salon combined business right next to the food court. Inside, she gaped a little at the enormous aisle of hair dye. They had every color of the rainbow, not to mention about seven hundred varieties of dye for all the normal hair colors. She didn’t even know there were this many kinds of black, much less this many types of black hair.

She heard footsteps behind her, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She told herself that she was in a store in a mall, people would walk around. Down, Xena.

“Hello ma’am, is there anything I can help you with?” An employee of the store, probably a college student if she had to guess, came over with that huge customer service smile.

“Actually, yes,” she responded after a moment’s hesitation. “I’m looking for hair dye that about matches mine. One of my friends wants to be twins for a party.”

“Hm, we’ve got a couple that should work.” The employee went down the aisle, pulling out two boxes with beautiful models, probably photo edited to look even more beautiful than they were, and showed them. “These should be very close.”

“Thank you for your help.” Rachel took the boxes of dye from the woman’s hand, giving her an only half-forced smile and a small wave.

“If you need anything else, feel free to ask.” The woman gave a little wave as she moved on.

Rachel held up the two boxes, trying to compare the images of the women on the front to her own hair. It was hard to tell based on the picture, and the names didn’t exactly narrow down what color they were. One was labeled Summer Sunshine and the other was Sun-Bleached Gold. Not exactly deep descriptions. She ended up keeping Summer Sunshine, and gently placed Sun-Bleached Gold back where it came from. As she walked to the counter, her eyes skirted over the instructions on the back.

After paying the clerk, she wrapped the bag she was given tightly around the box. She didn’t want anyone who knew her to see by accident. Frankly, she knew she was overthinking this whole thing, but she was in too deep to stop now. She made her way towards the thrift store at the end of the mall, power-walking to get there without risking running into anyone she knew. Unfortunately, her luck just about ran out as she entered the store.

Her goal had been to find a jacket, something light but fashionable and easy to explain. The thrift store was a perfect place to find something when she’d already dug into the savings she’d been making. Despite all her attempts to make this a solo mission, to take every measure to ensure she didn’t run into anybody, she could not have counted on this.

On Cassie spending free time without her at the mall. She almost ran right into her best friend as she exited the store while Rachel had been entering.

“Oh, hey Rachel. Should’ve expected to see you here.” Cassie gave Rachel one of those warm Cassie smiles that filled up her chest with happy, fuzzy feelings. The kind of smile that reminded her there were good things in the world when everything was going upside down, sideways, end-over-end, and every other kind of way things could go wrong. The two of them shuffled off to the side to not block the entrance but also not fully commit to going in or leaving.

Rachel gave a smile back, doing her best to hide her nerves. “I’m more surprised to see you here. You’re not exactly a mall rat.”

Cassie lifted up her purchase bag, inside which was clearly a set of overalls and a pack of several pairs of thick working socks. “My mom asked me to pick these up for her since she won’t have time to go shopping. A lot of work at the office.” She shrugged her shoulders.

Rachel nodded her head. “The wild Cassie exits her natural habitat to explore the strange other world of price tags and high fashion to procure the valuable resource, the overalls, to return to her herd.”

Cassie laughed and shook her head. “I’m not wild. I help sick animals. It’s like the opposite of wild.”

Still, Rachel had made her laugh. It gave her a little jump, like someone had stuck her with electricity from behind. She got that kind of jolt a lot lately. She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but she mostly got it when talking to Cassie and Tobias.

“What are you here for? Just a mall crawl?” Cassie tilted her head slightly, a quizzical look in her eye.

Rachel had been so caught up in enjoying talking to her best friend she’d forgotten to come up with a good replacement reason she had already bought something when this store was her current destination. “I wanted to get a cute jacket. Refresh the wardrobe and all that. I’m a little low on funds, so I thought this would be the best place to check if there’s not a Macy’s sale.”

“And something else?” Cassie gestured at the wrapped object in her hand.

Uh. “This is for my mom. Shampoo.” That didn’t sound very convincing, but Cassie also might not figure it out. Still, actually lying to Cassie was a bad feeling. This was a small lie, only to protect her own feelings, but she still had a pit growing in her stomach, weighing her down as if she had swallowed a rock.

“Oh. Okay.” Cassie’s face fell slightly. She always had a sort of vibe, like she knew what you were thinking even if you didn’t know yourself. She could tell something was up, but she wasn’t going to press the issue.

Rachel tried to lighten the mood in the only way she knew how. “Do you want to come with me? In here I mean.”

“Sure.” Cassie’s face brightened again, and she spun on her heels back to face the store. “Let’s find you a jacket.”

The two girls entered the store, and Rachel felt slightly rejuvenated by the scent of opportunity. Specifically, shopping opportunity. Shopportunity? She saw the labels of the different racks, dictating the price range, sale value, and whether they were resold items or from another source.

Rachel took charge, as she was wont to do, and led the way through the store towards the low-but-not-too-low price range rack with many jackets. She turned it around and let Cassie chatter on towards her, talking about what was going on with the new rescues at her dad’s wildlife rehabilitation center. Rachel ran her fingers over several good-looking options, trying to size them up and see if she liked them.

Eventually she found a nice looking olive green jacket, slightly worn but in the type of way that she thought looked good. She slipped it on over her t-shirt, and turned around towards Cassie. “What do you think?”

“Since when do you care what  _ I _ think about fashion?” Cassie seemed a little sheepish in asking. She never came across as rude, or like she was insulted. It was more like she was genuinely surprised that Rachel was asking her opinion.

“Cass, I always care about your opinion. I know you’re not, like, Miss Fashion, but I still care what you have to say.” Rachel reached out a hand and patted Cassie’s shoulder, gently, as though Cassie might break if she hit too hard. “Really, what do you think?”

“I think it’s very you.”

Of course Cassie would say that. It was Cassie. Still, Rachel couldn’t help but feel emboldened by the assessment. “Thanks. I’m probably just gonna head home after this.” While she had said to her mom she might go over to Cassie’s, that was more an excuse for how much time it might take if she decided to go on a detour, or take some personal time before actually going back home.

“Yeah, me too,” Cassie said, “There’s always more mucking to do.”

“I’m glad I ran into you.” Rachel gave Cassie another smile as they reached the entrance to the mall.

“I’m glad too.”

The two of them smiled at one another and waved as they walked off. While she loved Cassie, Rachel was glad for the peace when her friend left. She was stressed out about the hair thing, and the idea of trying to hide it while talking to her stressed her out even more.

She began the walk home, now noticing that the bright day had made a turn for the uncomfortably warm. She wrapped her new jacket around the hair dye in a bag, giving it a double layer of nobody-look-at-this. The walk was less anxiety-inducing than the one that had taken her to the mall in the first place. Her feet padded along the sidewalk more quickly than the other direction, too, as she was hoping to get out of the sunlight before long. As she approached her block, she once again heard Tobias’ thought-speech in her head.

_ Back so soon? _ There was just a touch of snark, which she could appreciate, but it did set her nerves on edge more than usual.

Rachel shrugged her shoulders. Seeing as Tobias was still soaring above her head, trying to not seem like he was engaged in human life below, she couldn’t exactly give an audio response.

The next sound she heard was strange. It was a little like the sound someone makes when they are about to start talking, but cut themself off before they could really start. That kind of sound usually didn’t get properly translated with thought-speech, or maybe it just didn’t come up. But she definitely heard it just as she got to the front of her house. She sort of tilted her head to the side, glancing up at the bird overhead as she did, in a sort of “what were you going to say?” sort of gesture.

<Can I come over?> was all she got.

She nodded her head as she arrived at the front door, cracking it open and slipping inside. “Home!” she called out to announce to her family. Without waiting for a response, she bounded up the stairs and into her room, shutting and locking the door behind her. She didn’t usually lock the door too much. The only exceptions were when Tobias was visiting and when she was morphing.

In her room, she dumped her jacket package onto her bed, and she went to the window to pop it open and give Tobias his entryway. Moments later, hawk wings appeared in her vision and his talons grabbed the window frame.

“Hey, Tobias,” she said, sitting down in her desk chair and folding her legs under herself. “Did you want to talk about something?”

Birds don’t naturally emote very much, but Tobias ruffled his feathers. That could mean a hundred different things, but it was a sign of either him trying to emote or he felt something in them. Not very easy to get an emotional reading off a red-tailed hawk.

<Not really. I just wanted some company.>

Rachel was a little surprised by that. Normally he had Ax for company, and he didn’t try too hard to do human things unless someone else offered first. “Is Ax not around?”

<Marco offered to let Ax watch a TV show with him since his dad is out for work.>

That explained why he was here. He must not have felt welcome since Marco didn’t say anything specifically, and the particular offer reminded him of human activities he couldn’t do. Tobias wasn’t always very good at expressing how lonely he was at times, but Rachel could tell it bothered him.

“Do you want to read for a while?” She reached for the last book the two of them had started together, flipping a few pages in to try and find the place they’d left off.

<No, I just wanted to hang out. You could tell me about school, or about why you bought blonde hair dye.>

Rachel felt shocked again, though this was more being taken completely off guard. She sputtered for a moment, eventually stammering out, “How did you know?”

<I saw you leaving the mall. You didn’t do a very good job covering it up. I can see fleas on a cat at three hundred feet, I think I can read a simple label sideways in a bag.>

The rush of red going to Rachel’s cheeks certainly didn’t help her feelings about the situation. She turned in her chair, breaking the eye contact she’d tried to make with Tobias up until that point. She huffed. She could try to lie, but Tobias had the world’s best bullshit radar. Besides, she tried not to lie to him. Or to any of them, but especially not Tobias.

“It’s because I have gray hair. And I don’t want anyone to see.” One of her hands went to her hair, fingers combing through as if that would somehow make them disappear. She knew it wouldn’t, and she knew even being concerned this much was silly.

What she hadn’t expected to happen was to hear Tobias laughing in thought-speak. <Rachel, I’ve been able to see the roots of gray in your hair for a month. I thought it wouldn’t bother you, so I didn’t bring it up.>

“Oh.” What else was there to say, really? It was sometimes easy to forget that Tobias noticed things no one else did. Subtle differences, but starkly standing out with his enhanced vision.

<Should I have said something?>

Rachel considered her options for a moment. Then she let out a sigh. “No. I mean, it just would have led to this sooner. I’m supposed to be Xena, Warrior Princess, but all this stuff gets to me. I can’t hide it if I start going gray before I’ve even learned how to drive.” She got up from her chair and went over to her bed, unfurling the jacket to reveal the box within. She held it up as she turned back around to Tobias. “ _ This _ is my ticket to still look like normal old Rachel. To  _ being _ Xena for everyone.”

Silence gripped the both of them. Rachel found herself sitting on the edge of the bed again. Tobias preened his feathers for a moment, and she figured it was just his way of fidgeting.

<I don’t want you to just be Xena, Warrior Princess. You’re Rachel either way>, Tobias finally thought-spoke to her. <And I think it’s fine if what we do takes a toll on you. Look at me.>

It always hurt Rachel, more than a little, when Tobias referenced his current state. It was this terrible feeling of guilt, like if they had been able to do something differently in that first attack they would have been able to prevent him from getting stuck in a morph. Like if they had known more before going on the offensive, they could somehow have prevented what happened. Tobias seemed to have come to terms with it, but Rachel still wished she could do something about it.

“I know it doesn’t matter to you,” she finally allowed herself to respond, “but I have to be strong for everyone. To do the things everyone else can’t do. If it seems like I’m losing it, or breaking under stress, it could stop us from doing what we need to to beat the yeerks. So I’m going to make sure no one can see.”

Except for you, she thought. You can always see me.

<We need you, Rachel. Not some person you’re trying to be.>

Rachel felt her hands tremble as she went to open the box. Slip a finger into the cardboard slip that kept it shut, pop it open to see the bottle within. “I wish that were true. But this isn’t getting easier.”

<No, it’s not.>

They were both silent again.

Rachel slid the bottle of hair dye into her hand, eyes glancing onto the back for the instructions. She looked it over, trying to empty her head of other thoughts and focus only on what she was going to do. She still couldn’t stop trembling.

<I’m not gonna make the decision for you, but I think you’re beautiful.>

That was almost too much for her to take. She got up from her sitting position, went over to where Tobias was in the window, and put an arm around him. Hawks are not made for hugs, but she managed to give something of a hug to him. “I’ll see you later, Tobias.”

<Yeah.>

“Don’t tell anyone about this whole thing? Please?”

<Course.>

Rachel released him from the hug, blinking her eyes a couple of times to get the wetness in them to spread out or disappear completely. She gave a little bit of a wave as he turned to take off through the window, and she watched him soar into the afternoon sky.

Then she reached for her window, pulling it shut and once again being alone in her room. She turned around and unlocked the door, heading to the bathroom for a shower. After doing her usual routine, she once again looked over the instructions on the hair dye bottle. She used as little as possible while still covering the dyed areas, and waited a criminally long time.

She heard a pounding on the door. “Rachel? I need to pee!” It was Jordan’s voice.

“Use mom’s, I’m busy,” Rachel shouted back, anxiety building in her throat even as she said so.

“It’s been more than ten minutes, what’s so busy?” Jordan sounded annoyed but not suspicious. Typical little sister stuff.

“Month stuff. You know,” she responded, thinking as quick as she could.

Jordan gave a small groan but responded, “Okay, okay.”

Rachel sighed as she heard her sister’s footsteps going down the hall towards their mother’s room. She waited, and waited some more, and eventually got to the point where it was recommended to lightly rinse. She did, and took her clothes and the dye bottle with her back to her bedroom.

Once her hair had dried properly and completely, she sat back down on the floor near her full-length mirror. She started to pick and prod through the hair close to her temples, and smiled with satisfaction. Not a single gray in sight. Welcome back, Xena, Warrior Princess.

She still had Tobias’ words metaphorically ringing through her head. That would be something to consider for the future. For right now? She was going to be who the Animorphs needed her to be, without drawing suspicion from her family or anyone else who might find it strange that a fourteen year old girl was starting to go gray. Still, it felt nice to know that there was at least one person, even if he was a hawk, who thought she looked nice even when it was getting to her.

But that was a rabbit hole for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to see any comments, even if it's just picking out a particular line you like! Thanks for reading.


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